Bio
My research sits at the interface of plant microbiomes, host genetics, and immunity. I use quantitiative genetics and reverse genetic approaches to better understand how plant host modulate their root microbiomes, how microbiota impact plant growth, and how the plant immune system affects and is affected by microbiota.
Education
University of California, Davis | Davis, CA
Ph.D. in Plant Biology | 2011 - 2017
Virginia Tech | Blacksburg, VA
B.S. in Biological Sciences | 2007-2011
Experience
USDA NIFA Postdoctoral Fellow | Juenger Lab
University of Texas, Austin | 2018 - current
Postdoctoral Researcher | Sundaresan Lab
University of California, Davis | 2017
Graduate Researcher | Sundaresan Lab
University of California, Davis | 2011 - 2017
Publications
Preprints
Santos, C.; Liechty, Z.; Edwards, J.; Nguyen, B.; Huang, B.; Weimer, B.; Sundaresan, V. Drought duration determines the recovery dynamics of rice root microbiomes. (2020) BioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2020.09.29.314781
Murphy, K; Edwards, J; Louie, K; Bowen, B; Sundaresan, V; Northern, T; Zerbe, P. Bioactive Diterpenoids Impact the Composition of the Root-Associated Microbiome in Maize (Zea mays) (2020) Research Square DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-21333/v1 (Provisionally Accepted at Scientific Reports)
Mueller, U., Juenger, T., Kardish, M., Carlson, A., Burns, K., Edwards, J., Smith, C., Fang, C., Des Marais, D. Artificial Microbiome-Selection to Engineer Microbiomes That Confer Salt-Tolerance to Plants. BioRxiv (2019) DOI: 10.1101/081521
Peer Reviewed
Liechty, Z., Santos, C., Edwards, J., Nguyen, B., Mikhai, D.l, Eason, S., Phillips, G., and Sundaresan, V. “Comparative Analysis of Root Microbiomes of Rice Cultivars with High and Low Methane Emissions Reveals Differences in Abundance of Methanogenic Archaea and Putative Upstream Fermenters.” mSystems 5 (1) (2020). https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00897-19.
Edwards, J., Santos-Medellin, Liechty, Nguyen, B., Kilmer, J., Liechty, Z., Veliz, E., Ni, J., Phillips, G., Sundaresan V. Soil domestication by rice cultivation results in plant-soil feedback through shifts in soil microbiota. Genome Biol 20, 221 (2019) doi:10.1186/s13059-019-1825-x
Edwards, J., Santos-Medellín, C., Sundaresan V. “Extraction and 16S rRNA Sequence Analysis of Microbiomes Associated with Rice Roots.” Bio-protocol (2018): DOI 10.21769/BioProtoc.2884
Edwards, J., Santos-Medellín, C., Liechty, Z., Nguyen, B., Lurie, E, Eason, S., Phillips, G., Sundaresan, V. “Compositional shifts in root-associated bacterial and archaeal microbiota track the plant life cycle in field-grown rice.” PLoS Biology 16.2 (2018): e2003862. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2003862
Santos-Medellín, C., Edwards, J., Liechty, Z., Nguyen, B., and Sundaresan, V. “Drought stress results in a compartment-specific restructuring of the rice root-associated microbiomes.” mBio 8.4 (2017): e00764-17. DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00764-17
Battenberg, K., Wren, J. A., Hillman, J., Edwards, J., Huang, L., & Berry, A. M. (2017). The Influence of the Host Plant Is the Major Ecological Determinant of the Presence of Nitrogen-Fixing Root Nodule Symbiont Cluster II Frankia Species in Soil. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 83(1), e02661-16. doi: 10.1128/AEM.02661-16
Edwards, J., Johnson, C., Santos-Medellín, C., Lurie, E., Podishetty, N.K., Bhatnagar, S., Eisen, J.A., and Sundaresan, V. (2015). Structure, variation, and assembly of the root-associated microbiomes of rice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1414592112